Distinguished Lawyer Memorial Honoree

Ferdinand Fletcher

“Ferd” Fletcher was born in San Diego in 1911 and grew up in a three-story home built by U.S. Grant Jr. at the corner of Eighth and Ash. After graduating from San Diego High School, he attended Stanford University for two years before transferring to the University of Oregon where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history. He graduated from Hastings College of Law in San Francisco where he began his legal career as an assistant counsel for the federal government in 1935. In 1939, he and DeWitt “Dutch” Higgs became law partners and were joined in 1940 by Henry “Pitts” Mack to form the firm of Higgs, Fletcher & Mack. During World War II, Mr. Fletcher served as an air combat intelligence office in the Navy. While on duty aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown with a Corsair fighter squadron, he was involved in some of the first carrier strikes on Okinawa and Japan. He left the Navy in 1945 as a lieutenant and resumed his law career at Higgs, Fletcher & Mack. During his nearly 50 years of practicing law he helped lay the groundwork for the Salk Institute and headed such organizations as the San Diego Rotary Club, the Armed Services YMCA, the San Diego County Bar Association, the California Easter Seal Society, the Economic Development Corporation of San Diego, and the county Airport Advisory Commission. He retired from the full-time practice of law in 1987 and continued with the firm as a legal consultant until the mid 1990’s. His wife of 59 ½ years, Virginia, died in 1999.